Waffle House obtains permit for new building
The owners of the Clinton Waffle House restaurant have now gotten a building permit from the city of Clinton to construct a new facility on the same spot as the present one.
But a top company official said last week that no date has been set yet for when the project would begin.
Plans are to close the restaurant now on the site, demolish it, and build the new one within a few months.
But the work will not begin until at least early next year, said Curtis Mount, senior vice president of Rocky Top Waffles LLC., the franchisee of the Clinton store.
The company had intended to do the work earlier this year and had obtained a demolition permit for the present building in January. The shutdown never occurred, however, after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the project has been on hold for nearly a year.
But on Dec. 8, the company was issued a building permit for the new restaurant, showing a cost of $550,000 for the construction of a 2,132 square-foot “new commercial structure” at 2255 N. Charles G. Seivers Blvd. Contractor on the permit is listed as Market Place Holdings.
Mount said last January that the entire project could take four to eight months to complete, and that there would be no Waffle House in Clinton until the new facility was completed and opened.
“It will be a whole new building,” Mount said earlier, adding that it would be “just a little bit larger than the present building,” which has been open in that spot for more than 30 years, and will have “about eight more seats, if that.”
As to why it’s being done, Mount said: “Every 30 years we tear one down and put a new one in.”
While the restaurant is shut down, the current staff of about 30 will be offered temporary positions in nearby Waffle House locations operated by the same company, which include the ones in Caryville, Powell and Oak Ridge, Mount said.
Rocky Top Waffles is the oldest Waffle House franchisee – and was the first, Mount said. It’s based in Alpharetta, Georgia, and has three divisions.
One division is in upper East Tennessee, and it has 33 Waffle House locations from Bristol/Kingsport/Johnson City to Lenoir City, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville. It includes the Clinton store and all Knoxville-area stores. There is another in the Chattanooga area, and a third one in north Georgia.
The first Waffle House was opened by Joe Rogers and Tom Forkner on Labor Day, 1955, in the Atlanta suburb of Avondale Estates. The parent company, headquartered in Norcross, Ga., has more than 1,500 Waffle House locations, both company-owned and franchises.
Waffle House allows only employees to become franchisees, according to company spokeswoman Caroline Schiltz.
“Being privately held, Waffle House does not franchise to the general public,” she said in an email.
“The first thing on the criteria list to be considered for a franchise is you are required to be a current employee.”
Some Waffle House trivia, from its website:
All stores are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
All food is prepared fresh, cooked to order and served on real china in a kitchen that is out front and in full view of customers.
Waffle House holds the title as the world’s leading server of waffles, omelets, T-bone steaks. Besides the signature waffles, menu favorites include Bert’s Chili and Lib’s Patty Melt, along with hash browns served eight different ways.
The company also is famous for staying open in the middle of hurricanes and other disasters, if its stores can do so safely.
In many of those cases, company executives are on hand to cook and serve food to customers in place of regular staff.
Many Waffle House employees have long histories with the company. Mount, a Knoxville native, said he had been working for Waffle House 45 years, having joined the company as a cook on the third shift at a former location on Cedar Bluff Road in Knoxville.